Fraser’s jig

“The Cape Breton Fiddler” by Allister MacGillivray
College of Cape Breton Press, 1981
ISBN: 0-920336-12-4

Pages 120 – 121: Dan Hughie MacEachern

Dan Hughie’s younger days were enriched with Scottish melodies, notably the spirited fiddling of his older brothers, John Willis and Alex who learned their high and low bass tunings from “Big” Hughie MacMaster. Encouraged to try his hand at an old family violin which had been refurbished, Dan Hughie was soon making music. ~ Dan Hughie’s sisters, Kaye and Marcella, provided a unique rhythmic accompaniment in his earliest efforts by tapping with knitting needles on the strings of his violin while he played.

Consistently warm hospitality at Duncan MacEachern’s (Dan Hughie’s father) home attracted noted violinists such as Gordon MacQuarrie, who gave Dan Hughie some bowing tips, and Dan Rory MacDonald. Further exposure to fine fiddling came in the person of “Big” Ronald MacLellan, whose musical wizardry left an indelible impression on all members of the MacEachern family.

After his initial public appearance at a wedding at LAuchie MacKinnon’s in South Rhodena, Dan Hughie was kept busy providing entertainment at every imaginable sort of function. For dances at the Sugar Camp schoolhouse and in Creignish, he’d team up with his brother, John Willie, occasionally utilizing a technique called “first and second violins” to add harmony (basically octaves) to certain melodies. ~

~ Dan Hughie embarked on a career of composing which resulted in the creation of many hundreds of beautiful melodies, some examples being:

“Fraser’s Jig” ~ the tune given here
“Jean MacKenzie’s Jig”

“The Champion Jig”
Key signature: e minor
Submitted on June 13th 2001 by Will CPT.
Attributed to Dan Hughie MacEachern
https://thesession.org/tunes/137

“Hector Mackenzie’s Jig”
Key signature: D Major
Submitted on June 5th 2006 by lildogturpy.
https://thesession.org/tunes/5830

“The Snowplough / Snowplow / Snow Plow Reel”
Key signature: A Major
Submitted on October 4th 2006 by fiddlingcaper.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6239

“The Red Mill Reel”
“The Victoria Line Reel”

“Alex Beaton’s Strathspey”
“Dan L. Cameron’s Strathspey”
“Alex MacEachern’s Strathspey”

“The Kennedy Street March”
“The Trip to Mabou Ridge March”

“The Land of My Love”
http://www.cranfordpub.com/mp3s/danhughie1.mp3

“Lament for Archie MacLellan”

& I suspect there are others on site here…

~ In 1975 “The MacEachern Collection” was published featuring over one hundred of Dan Hughie’s finest pieces.

http://www.cranfordpub.com/
http://www.cranfordpub.com/recordings/DanHughie.htm

Dan Hughie MacEachern (1913-1996) was an influential Cape Breton fiddle player and composer. Since he never made commercial recordings, this new double CD (a remastered compilation of home tapes) is most welcome. Some of the tunes, including the title track, are Dan Hughie originals. The majority of the repertoire, however, is older Scottish music interpreted in a distinctive Cape Breton fashion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqA1ty8Wlt8

play video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm3u1NhoCAk

play video

Hugh Allan “Buddy” MacMaster
http://www.atlanticartists.com/buddy/buddybio.html

“Dan Hughie MacEachern (Glenora), Dan R. MacDonald, Gordon MacQuarrie, Dan Hughie MacEachern (Queensville), Bill Lamey, Winston Fitzgerald and Alexander MacDonnell, all were regular visitors to the MacMaster household.”

“Buddy MacMaster: The Judique Flyer”
https://thesession.org/recordings/2208

7.) The Champion Jig (Dan Hughie MacEachern)

8.) Trip to Mabou Ridge, march (Dan Hughie MacEachern)
Dan L. Cameron, strathspey (Dan Hughie MacEachern)
Snow Plough, reel (Dan Hughie MacEachern)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Breton_fiddling

“Timing is a notable trait of Cape Breton music because good timing brings dancing alive. The older players (Donald Angus Beaton, Winston Scotty Fitzgerald, Dan Hughie MacEachern) knew how to bring a dance hall to life.”

Published: “MacEachern’s Collection”, Dan Hugh MacEachern, 1975

“Dan Hughie MacEachern’s Jig” by John Morris Rankin

“Dan Hughie MacEachern’s March” by Jean MacNeil
http://www.cranfordpub.com/vicstan/DanHughie.htm

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on September 17th 2006 by Fred Saur.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6204

“John Allan’s Jig”
“Malcom Burke’s Jig”
“Margaret Chisholm’s Jig”
“The Sandpit”

by John Graham Gibson
McGill-Queen’s Studies in Ethnic History

This is a continuance of research that began with the author’s earlier publication ~
“Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745 – 1945”

Part Three: New World Piping in Cape Breton

Chapter 11: Piping in the Glendale Area, River Denys Mountain, Melford, Big Marsh, Orangedale, and Valley Mills

Pages 241 – 242

Piping in the Gilleasbuig Bàn MacEachern Family

~ three (p. 242) MacEachern pipers who had lived on adjacent farms on MacEachern Road, which lies westward across the valley of the River Inhabitants at the eastern slope of the Creignish Hills. These were Sarah (Mór nighean Dhòmhnuill ’ic Ghilleasbuig Bhàn) and their first cousin Hugh (Eoghann mac Aonghuis ‘ic Ghilleasbuig Bhàin). None married, and Angus and Hugh died early in the twentieth century, just far enough back for confirmation of Allan Dan’s opinion of them as good step-dance pipers to be unconfirmable.

I was unable to unearth any memories critical or otherwise, of the piping of Angus and Hugh and discovered little about Sarah’s, but other information has come down. Jimmy MacKay remembered that “Mór” (Sarah) did not own a set of pipes but used to borrow a set from the River Denys Mountain piper Sandy Malcolm MacDonald (1870 – 1947), about whose piping nothing appears to have survived. Otherwise she played a chanter. What Jimmy MacKay did not say of her music suggests that she was not very accomplished. Angus was known as “Dory” Angus MacEachern. The story that Patrick MacEachern told of him did not involve piping but rather his survival for eight days and eight nights in a dory off Louisburg, presumably fog-bound, back in the days when schools of one-man dories were used in the cod fishery. ~ Patrick knew of Hugh MacEachern as Hughie “the black boy”; he was aware that he had played the pipes but had never met him. Nobody mentioned Angus’s having had a set of bagpipes, but Jimmy MacKay said that Angus’s cousin Hugh (Eoghann mac Aonghuis ’ic Ghilleasbuig Bhàin) may have had a home-made set.

For all this dubious evidence, there was a broad vein of music in the MacEacherns. Hughie “the black boy” had a brother Duncan MacEachern whose children included the fiddler-composer Dan Hughie MacEachern (1913 – 96), Queensville; the fiddler John Willie (1901 – 70), Queensville; and the fiddler Alex Joe (1907 – 76, Boston and New York. Two of Dan Hughie’s books of fiddle compositions were published during his lifetime, and he was the finest traditional exponent of “Tulloch Gorm” in the county that I have ever heard. ~

# Posted on February 3rd 2005 by ceolachan
https://thesession.org/discussions/5739

Another one! 😎

Just a quick question ceolachan, will there be questions later because I don’t think I’ll be able…

Once again I’m amazed at the amount of information. Facinating as always.
Thankyou for sharing with us, it would be a poorer world without it; well at least I think so..

No, only the usual sobriety tests…

X: 2
T: Fraser’s
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: G Mixolydian
|: D |\
GAG d3 | dcd g3 | f2 c dfd | cAF AGF |
GAG d3 | dcd g2 e | f2 d cAF |[1 G3 G2 :|[2 G3 G ||
|: Bd |\
g3 def | gfg d2 e | f2 c dfd |
[1 cAF F2 f | g3 def | gfg d2 e | f2 d cAF | G3 G :|
[2 cAF AGF | GAG dcd | gfg a2 g | f2 d cAF | G3 G2 |]

thatshawllrightthen….

I lifted this off a YouTube video of David Greenberg and Kate Dunlay busking. Nice. The second jig is also pretty jolly in that sombre minor key sort of way.

A few friendly comments:

1) Avoid putting the title in the body of the tune.
2) Don’t put first and second endings in square brackets.
3) You have three bars with too many notes (a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver).
4) It’s a bit squeezed up - try inserting line breaks to let the notation breathe.
5) If you refer to a YouTube video, consider adding a link to the video so that people can have a look.

Noted and ammended. A name would be nice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHy1quB67IU

play video

https://thesession.org/tunes/8206 – Although nice setting, Nigel!